A Night Under The Stars

 

A little over half way through Christopher’s Freshman year he does something Kevin never managed to do.  Attend more than one dance at the high school

The Winter Ball has another name – Sadie Hawkins Dance.   And Madi, friend of all friends, did ask Cpher to go.  We’re a little confused on this point actually; we were under the impression that the invitation just sort of ‘happened’ but came to find out later she asked him three or four times before he said yes.   Not sure we will ever get to the bottom of it.

Madi might be 5-2”" on a good day.

and it was plenty cold that night….Cpher gave Madi his jacket when they walked into Taco Bell for their late night snack. 

They did slow dance (“All of Me” – John Legend and ….I forget now what the other song was…Ed Sheeran I think).   Madi described it as ‘awkward’ because of the height difference.   But they had fun with the ‘squad’….

Maybe the only other thing I’ll put here – I’ll never eat at a Outback Steakhouse again.  They butchered the reservation/call-ahead seating thing so bad for these kids I’m getting mad just typing this now.  Never. Again. 

All About That Bass

 

It’s a rare thing when you get a boy downplaying a significant accomplishment.

About a month ago Matthew was telling me that they were determining who would be the section leader for the basses (and, the section leaders for the rest of the sections in the orchestra).  Matthew reports that he did ok, he thought another kid did better, and they would conclude the process the next day. 

I forget to ask him the next day…..and forgot I think for about a week after that, but, finally remembered to ask, hey, “How did the orchestra chairs end up?”

Matthew:  “Oh yeah.  I’m the section leader.”

I kind of stop what I’m doing and look at him.  Ask him why he didn’t tell us about this….he said, yeah, no big deal.  It’s a big deal.  Told Suzanne; she asks Matthew about it, tells him it’s a big deal.  Tell Kevin, who is just amazed at this, and tells Matthew “This is a big deal”.

It’s really a bigger deal when you consider that a) we don’t ask Matthew to practice at all…..Suzanne and I have quit arguing about this with him and are just content that he seems willing to continue playing bass into high school.  Matthew was adamant for many months that after 8th grade that was it for bass and b) the kids who sit 2nd and 3rd chair take private lessons.  One of those kids played with the 8th grade orchestra last year!  

So I go to parent teacher conferences for Matthew, and other than hearing he’s a good kid who should do his homework more often from other teachers (and one math related issue I will follow up on later) I talk with the orchestra teacher, and I mention that Matthew really downplayed becoming the section leader.  She stops and goes into this ‘rave’ about how he totally earned it, how incredible it is because she knows he doesn’t take lessons and the others do, how quickly Matthew picks up things and how awesome it would be if we could ever get him into lessons.

 

We’ll never get him into lessons – I just can’t see a) Matthew wanting to do them and b) finding the time for them amongst his sports desire.  We are happy enough that Matthew is having a ton of success even with the minimal effort he is putting into this away from school.   And that we still have four years of orchestra to hopefully look forward to.

(taken before the auditions…or else he would have been the bass on the far right.  They are just presented in a random order here)

A Winter Pet Update

 

Marino:  Kind of the black sheep of the cat family; where Madison and Daphne hang out together all the time you don’t often see Marino near the two of them.  In fact, Marino tends to hang out and ‘play’ with the dogs more than anything else.

Marino, at this point, is probably the cat that goes outside the least.  Her biggest claim to fame is a desire to be the lap cat and the uncanny ability to understand when lunch meat is being used on the kitchen counter and showing up in time to get a few bites.

Daphne:  I still think the Kevin departure has rocked Daphne to the core.  She hides it well and has successfully transitioned her nightime antics from Kevin to Suzanne.  It takes, oh, about 2 hours for her to realize when Kevin is home and she promptly relocates her entire life to the basement at that point.

Daphne, we are positive, is also the cat that will pee all over the beds upstairs if we aren’t careful to keep the doors closed.  We think this is because she hates the dogs and won’t journey all the way downstairs to the kitty litter unless truly forced to it.  So, for example, if Cpher leaves his door open, we will be washing sheets.  Happily, for Daphne, Matthew and Cpher keeping their doors closed seems to have solved this problem.  

Likes to chirp at the birds out the window.  Not so big a fan of outside anymore but will venture out in warmer times of the year and sometimes will stay out all night.

Madison:  These orange cats crack me up….she is certainly the queen around the house and is the only cat that goes outside on any kind of regular basis anymore.  Little presents don’t show up as much anymore, but, sometimes we think it is because the dogs help out with ‘disposal’.   Madison, like Daphne, has successfully transitioned her bed ‘game’ to Suzanne (the cats know that I will move them right the heck off of me if they try that crap….Suzanne is a lot ‘nicer’).

Aside from the constant presence outside, the distinguishing feature about Madison is that if you touch her she will make (usually) some sort of little noise.  The noise varies from moment to moment but it is amusing.  

Holly:  Certainly wins the award for most annoying dog.  The bright side I guess is she definitely lets the neighbors and strangers know that there is a dog here, but, we certainly wish she would just shut the heck up most of the time.  She would get to be outside more if she could manage it.  Bark collar has been successful at times but isn’t a consistent deterrent for some reason. 

Holly still isn’t the biggest Bailey fan – Bailey knows this and the play-fights between them are few and far between and are always filled with a lot of trepidation on Bailey’s part (kind of like she is saying “I’d like to play with you, but, you will go psycho on me so I don’t trust you”).  

(Matthew…out cold with the flu that blew through the house)

What else?  By far the slowest eater of the three dogs, also the smallest of the three.  Always seems to be battling with Bailey to be the center of somebody’s attention.

Bailey:  Just an amazingly calm dog.  While Bailey is barking her head off at whatever is walking by she just sits there, watching.  Deer in the backyard?  I’ll just watch thank you.

She can go absolutely crazy sometimes playing with Wiley…when she does laps around the living room it can be a very painful experience for the humans as she plants her paws on the unwary soul who doesn’t see her coming.

She is a retriever….she has learned that there are things that we’d prefer she not chew on and now her preferred move is to gently grab them in her mouth and bring them out to us to gently take from her.  Not the best retriever-fetch dog; she will do it for a while and then gets bored with the whole concept.

Still think she is shy of Wiley by a few pounds.  This doesn’t matter to her because she is relentless in attacking her favorite play partner.  Feel bad for Wiley sometimes; Bailey can be ruthless, especially with Wiley’s ears.  As mentioned, she is not shy about pushing Bailey out of the way to get some attention from someone and often Bailey and Holly will rotate in the spot right next to Suzanne for most of the night.

Wiley:  Just turned 10.  An amazing thing.  Think he might be a few pounds too heavy but that might be the only thing wrong with him other than getting older.  Will gleefully prance and dance around to get food or go outside.

Unlike the other dogs who compete for attention, Wiley is more than happy to just sit off to the side on the couch or floor and watch things happen.  That’s not to say that he won’t make his presence known for petting every now and again, it’s just that he ‘s not nearly as insistent about it as Bailey and Holly are.

A Winter Christopher Update

 

Conditioning:  Attends football conditioning 2-3 times a week (depending on how often they have it) and 1-2 times a week for lacrosse.  He’s only missed when he’s been sick…..and that makes him an anomaly among freshman since not many kids are going to these sessions at all.  I understand kids who are doing wrestling or basketball not going, but, as I’ve told Cpher, you are doing two sports, so, you are doing two sports.

There have been a few days where he’s been really tired, but, my impression for the most part is that it’s not that strenuous.   Not sure I’m seeing any change in his upper-body development from the weightlifting but that might take some time.

Tasty Videos: Shared, everywhere, on facebook, they are a favorite of Christopher’s.  He has attempted to make two or three of the recipes:

The Cinnamon Roll French Toast Bake was not very successful; I ended up eating most of it over the course of a week.  Too liquid-y….not sure where he went wrong here.

This Pull-Apart Pizza Muffin recipe isn’t the exact one on facebook but I think it is close enough.  This recipe is the hit of the last couple months….it is very tasty and he’s made it several times.   Did learn an important lesson about yeast after the first attempt (freeze the leftovers, don’t just leave them out in the fridge). 

Madi:  Not a girlfriend (Reasonably confident about this!) but without a doubt Cpher’s bestest of best friends and there isn’t even a close second.   They spend hours on the phone (face-timing). 

…….making Christmas cookies……

….taking the relatively easy Oreo Challenge….

Christopher is Madi’s ‘date’ for the winter formal / Sadie Hawkins dance….but I’d again caution that it is more best friends than ‘date’.  I think.

School:  Could have gone better in the first semester at high school, could have been worse I guess.  If there is one lesson to be learned here it is that Cpher can not skip or turn in assignments late….he’s not a good enough test taker to overcome that kind of handicap.

A Winter Matthew Update

 

Soccer:  Another seasons of winter soccer has come and gone….finished with 2 wins, 3 losses, 2 ties.  Not the best of indoor seasons

But….we played three sets of games back-to-back, and that’s a sure recipe for racking up losses on the back end (we went 1 and 2).  We switched coaches (again!); the new coach is trying new things and one of the losses is almost directly because of that. 

Matthew, as is a theme for everything since December, played at the very least ‘well’ and at times in my mind a lot better than that.  After one game we lost a lot of other parents were very upset by the result….I was telling Suzanne I was not and that was almost 100% because Matthew kicked ass for the entirety of the game.  He’s been a lot more consistent in that regard and that is good to see.

The new coach….the last coach resigned because he couldn’t deal with the commute anymore and I get that….he has a very young daughter and I think there were many nights he just wouldn’t see here.  So ok.  It, again, gives Matthew a new opportunity with a new coach.  Pavol seems to be very heavily focused on the fitness end of the game, and happily, because of the things I’m about to talk about, Matthew might be in the best shape of the last two to three years….at least as good as it was at the end of cross-country 15 months ago.   Consequently, he seems to be getting a little more playing time than some others and is showing why he should continue to get that time.

Futsal: The other new thing on the soccer front is that the club has added a futsal option for the winter.  The executive summary of this is 2 additional practices a week on a basketball court in 4v4 soccer with a few games.  And I think the games have been a disaster because this is the first year of the program and they’ve made some poor choices.  But the training…..the practices are some serious work-outs and Matthew has had to really develop his footwork over the last three months.  It’s just been an outstanding experience.

Spartan Performance:  Since soccer ended in the fall and since there was no basketball on deck, Suzanne and I agreed to have Matthew do hour-long sessions at Spartan Performance.  SP is a physical training program run through MSU; I think the short answer is that it gives them a place for their physical training students to ply their trade. 

Matthew has been doing it since November; he is complaining now that it is more than a little repetitive and that’s unfortunate that they can’t seem to vary the training program more.   I think everyone who sees Matthew, and especially Suzanne and I, have noticed what a difference those two hours a week have made.  Just having someone show you and then force you to run a slightly different way is well worth the time and dollars we are spending here.

They ‘test’ him every month….and they provide some video of what he’s been doing between the first training session and the most recent

 

He’s got about another month left here (we won’t ask him to do this while trying to manage full-on soccer and lacrosse!).   But I think we’ve learned enough this winter to plan on going back next winter.

Computer Building:  The big project over the last two months has been Matthew’s desire to build a computer from scratch.  This sounds a lot harder than it looks, mainly because there are about a jilliion youtube videos that tell you how to do it.  And, as of last weekend, his ‘rig’ is set-up in his room and I hope we can get him to do something other than play games on it (Mom and Dad are hoping for some interest in coding….).

But it wasn’t as easy as watching a video and doing it….we thought we fried the motherboard and spend about three weeks wondering why we couldn’t get power to the system.  Turns out that a) we didn’t install the motherboard to the case and were probably shorting it out at one point and b) the video led us astray on the connections from the case to the motherboard.  Once we figured that part out (with a little help from the local computer shop) the fans started spinning and Matthew has been very happy ever since.

A Winter Kevin Update

 

School:  Non-existent at this point….he’s out doing his first Co-Op.  Still lives on campus….after having the roommate from ‘meh’ in the Fall (the guy slept 90% of the time) he has no roommate right now.  So that’s awesome.

Job #1:  The co-op is through the US Commercial Service; 9-5 Monday through Thursday through mid-June.  What’s the Commercial Service you ask?

“The U.S. Commercial Service is the trade promotion arm of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration. U.S. Commercial Service trade professionals in over 100 U.S. cities and in more than 75 countries help U.S. companies get started in exporting or increase sales to new global markets.”

I’ll have to quiz Kevin for some more details on his work so far……just haven’t really asked.  I have the impression the position is more than copy-making and coffee-fetching but couldn’t tell much more than that.

One benefit of the position is that he has an office;  a nice office with a view. 

Takes the Metro in and home from work everday.

Job #2:  After some prodding from Mom and Dad (who understand that he needs this unpaid position but aren’t the most thrilled about it…especially since he’s forbidden by rule to move off campus and lower costs) Kevin has picked up a part-time job at a movie theatre.   This is good in more than a few ways…..he now has some income, it fills up some of his free time, and it allows him to see a whole lot of movies.   Kevin has only been working about a week at this point…..and Mom and Dad could make the point that he might be overdoing it right now (Kevin felt the had to take a lot of hours to get the job).   Seems like the second week of scheduling is better than the first (two weekend days and one weekday night).   And if he works 20-24 hours a week on the high end I think that will be good enough.

Not a lot of snow in Boston this year……although he did report getting a little frostbite while walking home from the theatre at 1 am.  Of course, Mom warned him how cold it would be and highly suggested taking an Uber….but he didn’t listen.

The Rest of 2016:   He’ll work through June.  He’ll come on vacation with us.  Then he will go to Auckland New Zealand to study abroad through November (Kevin will be taking classes towards his Economic major).  Then he’ll meet up with us in December for our trip to Hawaii….we’ll see if he hangs out in SE Asia in the downtime or comes home.  And then hopefully off for an international co-op in January of 2017.

So How is School Going?:  Had his best semester yet in the Fall…..has made Dean’s List every semester. 

Iphone Photo Dump – October 2015

 

Again, presented in no particular order

For one of the home football games the spirit ‘motto’ for the week was a paint-out(?). I’m not sure what the exact word for it is….anyway, kids could purchase a plain white t-shirt with the word ‘Okemos” on it.  An hour before the game the senior leaders spray paint on everybody and everything around them. 

Anyway, they took this picture of the student section.  And of course the kids in the front are recgonizable.  There is one big kid in the back row who stands out also….

    

He hasn’t washed the shirt….which is good, because the paint will immediately begin to fade.  Need to do something to preserve it though.  And clean it.

Two dogs like car rides….

The neighbor across the street has always been fond of Wiley, who apparently reminds him of a childhood pet.  He had a big-ass steak bone from dinner and made sure to stop by and bring it over for Wiley.  The other dogs know better than to mess around with the Wiles while bone-gnawing is on.

Waiting for Kevin to fly into Detroit Metro usually has me parked at a spot north of the airport watching the planes land.  Always a favorite pasttime for me….

Had a work trip up to Marquette.  A bit colder and stormier this time; here’s a picture of the lighthouse

Went to Chicago for Matthew’ soccer tournament; had lunch out near Schaumburg’s airport at this joint….with planes all over the ceiling.

Cpher and his squad before the homecoming dance.  As a reference, the boy in the gray is the next biggest lineman on the football team.

If you had to list Cpher’s best friends at school right now, it’s the girl in the blue and the girl in the navy blue, Alison and Madi. 

More dogs….as I’ve said, most of these pictures are sent to Kevin.

And some cats….

Iphone Photo Dump – August 2015

 

Tracking Kevin across Europe Part 1

Part 2

Mom asked for a photo when I picked him up from the airport after the epic trip….

Dogs after the trim….I guess I should wax poetic about Wiley.  For a dog who, literally, the vet asked “why haven’t you put him down yet?”, well, he is doing extremely well.   Long walks still have him limping around the next day….and he has to deal with Bailey’s attacks (she likes to gnaw on his ears).  But he is doing outstanding.

Bailey will sleep anywhere.  And the ottoman from the new couch seems like we bought it just for her….

Kevin, after arriving home from Europe.

Matthew and Johnny during the break between games in the August tournament.  I needed to go into this AV store for a SD card….they also sell mattresses so the boys checked out the selection.

While Suzanne was taking Kevin back to Boston the other half of the big tree in the back yard fell over.  Didn’t hear a sound.  Tress were down all over Okemos.

The dogs….waiting for me to get back.  Wiley will sit outside for hours when I’m gone.

Daphne – I’m sure I took this picture to send to Kevin

Holly, enjoying a sunbeam

There will be a whole ‘nother post on the revival of professional wrestling in this house.  Of note here is that Cpher and I share a size…so I’ve been stealing his WWE shirts and he is pissed off about that.  I like to refer to the shirt I have as the “Hit Early Hit Often” shirt.  Cpher doesn’t like that either.

More Kevin tracking

Holly worming her way up the couch for some petting

More dogs and sunbeams

A close-up of the dogs in front of the house from earlier